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Title: RAPID IDENTIFICATION OF BACTERIA BY FATTY ACID ANALYSIS USING FAST GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY

Author
item Buyer, Jeffrey

Submitted to: American Society for Microbiology Annual Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/22/2002
Publication Date: 5/19/2002
Citation: BUYER, J.S. RAPID IDENTIFICATION OF BACTERIA BY FATTY ACID ANALYSIS USING FAST GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY. AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MICROBIOLOGY 102nd General MEETING. 2002. Abstract No. C-12.

Interpretive Summary: .

Technical Abstract: The MIDI system (Microbial ID, Inc., Newark, Delaware) for fatty acid methyl ester analysis is widely used for identification of bacteria. Speed and throughput is limited by the need to incubate cultures for 24 h, a four-step derivatization procedure using screw-cap test tubes, and gas chromatography with a run time of 20.8 min per sample. The derivatization procedure was modified by using 1 ml glass tubes in a microplate format and multichannel pipettors. Gas chromatography was modified by using a smaller chromatographic column with higher gas pressure and faster oven temperature programming, reducing the chromatographic run time to 6.65 min. Taken together these modifications tripled the throughput of the method, allowing 94 samples to be processed in 3 h and run in less than 20 h. Several species were correctly identified after only 12 h of incubation on blood agar at 35 degrees C, so it may be possible to greatly reduce the time required to identify fast-growing clinical isolates.